I shake my head.
“Okay, okay. Calm down. Just take it easy,” I say to myself.
I stare down at the new halo in the coffin, a chiseled boy with biceps the size of my thighs.
Concentrate, Night! It wasn’t the flick of the wrist. I didn’t put enough pressure with my index finger. That’s it. I wind up and make sure I put adequate pressure; the skull leaps from my hand. Again it doesn’t skip back and forth nor spin the way it had before.
The halo strikes it and it rockets to left field. Mal tries to get it, but it’s out of her reach. He too makes it to the peak before we can get the skull back.
This absolute nightmare continues for another thirty minutes until the score is tied 19 to 19. No matter what I do, my rolls go right down the middle. The halos are having a field day.
I glance up at the crowd. The entire hoodie section is sitting glumly in their seats, their hands pressed between their thighs. My eyes wander up to the Regent’s box, and I notice Coach Praxis, the head coach of Death’s Academy, sitting in his chair with his arms crossed. I can almost make out his scowl from here. I feel sick.
I shake my head. “Come on now. It’s not all lost. I just need to get this next halo buried and then we can score and win,” I say to myself.
I glance up, and the situation has gone from awful to the heights of Heaven. There, waiting in the coffin, is Brilliance Michaels, the one who started this terrible debacle. I get into position and get ready to roll the skull.
“Time! Time!”
My coach is waddling out to me. Her face is bright red and she looks like she is about to have a heart attack. She huffs and puffs until she reaches me.
“Midnight, I think I’d better let Dred roll the rest of the game,” she says and sticks her hand out to take the skull from me.
A surge of anger and pride swells in my chest. I grip the skull tightly against myself.
“No. Coach, I can bury her. I know it.”
She shakes her head. “No, son, I need to help you out. You’re having a rough one right now. Let someone else give it a shot.”
My grip tightens around the skull, and my scowl darkens.
“No. I can do it. If you let Dred roll, we’re gonna lose. He’s terrible.”
She gives me a long, hard look. She knows I am right. I may not be doing wonderfully right now, but Dred is straight-up unicorn poo.
Coach grits her teeth and nods. “Fine. But you get one chance, that’s it. Got it?”
I nod and she waddles back to the bench.
I turn back toward the coffin and get set. Brilliance Michaels glares back at me with a slight smirk arching the corner of her lips. I take a deep breath and begin my wind up. I do everything perfectly and the skull jumps from my hand. It hits the ground, but to my horror it doesn’t twirl, spin, nothing. It races smoothly, straight down the middle of the coffin.
I don’t know if it’s my imagination or what, but it looks like Brilliance lets out a giant yawn before she springs forward and strikes the skull. Crack!
Everything goes silent. The skull soars over my head. I don’t even need to turn around; I know where it’s going. After what seems like an eternity, a shattering roar breaks out from the halo side and a horn-blast signals the end of the match.
“It’s a golden ring! That’s the match! That’s the match!” the announcer screams out over the loudspeakers.
I flop onto my backside. A cloud of dust erupts around me. I peek up and see that the halos have put Brilliance onto their shoulders and are celebrating. I let my eyes wander up to the Regent’s box, but only the Regent is there, clapping politely. The Death’s Academy coach is nowhere to be seen. My eyes scan down from the box, and then I lock onto a pair of eyes that are boring into me. Not a run-of-the-mill, average kind of stare, but one of those looks reserved for instant death. It’s my mom’s stare, and it’s pointed right at me.
Twelve
I’ve been looking at a water stain on the ceiling above my bed for the last hour. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in nearly two days, but every time I close my eyes, skulls soar through the golden ring. You could say that my life is pretty much over.
I’ve got a shocker for you—I didn’t get the scholarship. Surprise! I bet you didn’t guess that one, did you? When you blow the biggest lead in Junior Skull Ball history, it tends to reflect poorly on your rolling skills. I still don’t know what went wrong. It doesn’t really matter.
I rip my gaze from the ceiling and down onto the animatronic decoy strewn across my bedroom floor. So here’s what happened: my dad discovered my ruse about thirty minutes after I skipped out. Count on him to keep asking my computerized dummy questions.
Eventually it ran out of answers and started repeating itself. That’s when he got wise. He picked my mom up at work, and they came straight to the game. They arrived about two minutes before that no-good halo girl smacked the skull through the golden ring for the second time. Two golden skulls in one game! What are the chances of that?
I was pretty sure my mom was going to rip my head off in front of everyone, but thankfully she waited until we got into the car. As soon as the car door shut she started into me, but then something happened that still kind of surprises me. My dad stood up for me. She turned on him, but then he actually told her to “shut it.” I don’t know who was more surprised, she or I.
We were a family of monks for the rest of the day; none of us spoke a word. When it was time, my dad drove me to the testing center for the pre-exam. I actually did worse this time … It’s hopeless. I’m going to end up a lackey for another hoodie, fetching coffee, filing death certificates, stuff like that. Or even worse, end up being a guard down at Cha-rama Prison.
I roll over in bed. It’s 12:32 a.m. I let out a grunt and throw my covers off.
“I’m going nuts.”
I hop out of bed and throw my pants and shoes on. I gotta get out of this room. If I don’t, I’m going to end up sitting in a cell blowing bubbles and talking to the wall like Pandora for the rest of my life.
I tiptoe to my door and listen. Nothing. There’s only the steady heartbeat of the grandfather clock down the hall. I creep back over to my window and gently slide it up high enough so I can squeeze out. I am out the window and down the trellis in a flash. I peek back at my parents’ bedroom window … all quiet.
Just a couple of times around the block to clear my head, that’s what I need. All of a sudden, I hear the pattering of feet and a familiar grunt. I spin around and Roger is looking up at me with his head cocked to the side. His fur looks even worse underneath the streetlamp. A long pink stripe of skin from the top of his head to the tip of his tail makes him look ridiculous. I can’t bring myself to be upset at him for following me.
“Fine. You can come, but stay quiet,” I whisper.
Roger lets out a high-piercing fart and wags his tail a couple of times.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I say. “Keep quiet.”
He seems to nod his head, and I turn and start walking. I can hear him trotting and heaving behind me.
“Roger, I really screwed up.”
He grunts.
“We almost had them. We were two points from winning … Ugh!” I say and throw my hands over my face. I don’t want to think about it.
I feel a scratch across my leg, like someone has just rubbed sandpaper across it. I glance down. Roger is rubbing his side against me, looking up at me with big, dark eyes.
I reach down and rub his neck. He licks my hand.
“Thanks, boy.”
He farts again.
“Good grief! What have you been eating?”
I jump forward, hoping to stay in front of the smell. We keep moving side by side down the street. I watch my shoes kicking out in front of me. I focus on them and try to let the cool night air wipe my memory. I’ve got too many thoughts.
It takes me a moment to realize that the familiar, dull, gray cement sliding beneath my feet has been replaced by pitte
d, maroon brick. Tufts of grass fight through the cracks. I stop mid-stride and look around. I’m standing at the entrance to Larkspur Park! How did I get to Larkspur Park? It’s over five miles from my house!
I rub my eyes in disbelief and then peer down at my watch.
“3:18! You gotta be kidding me. Roger, what have you done?”
He looks up at me and wags his tail once before flopping onto his butt. I’ve been walking for almost two hours straight, and somehow I ended up all the way out here. I take a couple of backward steps to return to the safe gray cement. I’m not superstitious or anything, but Larkspur Park has always given me the heebie-jeebies.
It’s an ancient park with redbrick pathways winding through its canopy of towering cottonwood trees. Even in the daytime, it’s dark. The trees are so mashed together that they block out most of the sun.
I stare into the darkness and only a few faint lamps along the pathways peer back at me like smoky yellow eyes. Over the tops of the trees, I can just see the glimmering peak of the plinth that lies in the middle of the park. It was built hundreds of years ago to commemorate a famous battle that took place here. Like I’ve said before, I’m not too good with the whole history stuff, but if I’m not mistaken, it had something to do with the Unicorn Wars.
I glance down at Roger. “We better get going, boy. It’s going to take us the rest of the night to get home.”
All of a sudden, Roger springs to his feet and growls at the trees.
I turn to look at what he’s growling at, but I can’t see more than a few feet into the pitch black underneath the canopy.
“Come on, boy. It’s time to go.”
Roger lets out a series of deafening barks, and his growl rises to a bristling pitch.
“Roger! No! Let’s go! Let’s go right now!” I say, straining to see what he’s growling at.
In a flash, Roger bolts from his spot and sprints into the park. He disappears into the black, his barks swallowed up by the night.
“Roger!” I yell. “Roger, come back right now!”
I take a couple steps back; the darkness from underneath the trees seems to be reaching out its claws toward me. My heart thunders in my chest.
“Roger!” I say, the sound barely scraping over my lips. I swallow and try again with more force. “Roger!”
I go quiet and listen. The silence is suffocating and absolute. Then from what sounds like deep in the park comes a shrill whinny. It is unlike anything I’ve heard before—a mixture of a horse neighing and nails screeching against a chalkboard. I take another few steps back, but then I hear something that makes my heart stop. A terrible whimper and cry of pain. It’s Roger.
Thirteen
I plunge myself into the darkness. I extend my arms out in front of me like a blind man feeling for my path. The low-hanging branches and leaves whip against my arms and face. With every other step, my foot catches a tree root or rock, and I stumble. Roger lets out another painful cry and I double my speed.
Whack! My shoulder collides with a tree trunk, and I spin and tumble to the earth. I bounce up and am back on my feet and running.
“Roger! Roger!”
The underbrush begins to get thicker, and vines reach up and catch onto my legs. I push through the tide of vegetation. Suddenly, my outstretched hands hit something frigid and solid: a moss-covered stone wall. I reach up to see if I can feel the top, but it must be over ten feet high. I place my left hand on the wall and trudge along the side through the knee-high vines and brush.
I have gone over a hundred feet and am about to turn back to try the other way when I feel the jagged edges of newly broken stone. There’s a gash in the wall, an opening large enough for me to climb through. I heave myself over the broken stones and crawl though the opening.
As I hop down, I am greeted by more trees and brush. Cutting through them, I can see a faint red light directly in front of me. It illuminates a violently hewn pathway. Scarred tree trunks with sap still oozing from their wounds and broken limbs point in the direction I must go. Something large and destructive has made its way through these trees. My courage begins to seep away, and I feel myself edging back into the crack in the wall, when a soft whimper beckons me onward.
I scamper forward from tree to tree, peering one way and then another. I make my way toward the light, its strength gradually revealing more of my surroundings. The trees are even thicker and wilder here inside the wall, and it’s hard to see farther than a few feet. I stop behind a wide tree trunk, its side recently caved in. I get my first glimpse of where the light is coming from. What the heck is that?
A six-foot-tall candy cane sticks out of the black earth. A bloodred light beams out if its stripes. It looks like something out of a Christmas nightmare. I take another step forward to get a better glimpse of it when I hear the faint breathing of something near my feet. I jump back and stifle a scream. It’s Roger.
I drop down to his side. His fur is matted down and hot. His eyes, half shut, look up at me pleadingly, and he whimpers.
“Roger, what happened?” I whisper.
Snap! Crunch! Crunch! A terrible breaking and cracking of trees comes from the other side of the candy cane light. The noise gets louder until a hulking form breaks through the trees and into the small clearing around the candy cane. To my horror I see it—a ten-foot-tall, shimmering white unicorn.
Just like in the paintings I’ve seen, his shoulders are broad and strong. He is standing upright on his back haunches, his back legs shorter than his front legs. His front hooves have been split and gnarled into bony, stubbed claws. Whether that was done by him or they have genetically formed that way, I can’t tell. The shining horn sticking out of his skull is chipped and blunted like it has run through several enemies. A vicious scar runs from his ear to his snout. His right eye has been struck out and a hollow vacancy has replaced where it used to reside.
The candy cane’s crimson light bounces off his coat. It shimmers and gleams, making him look like he’s on fire. He stops suddenly and lifts his snout up into the air. He sniffs one way and then another, his eye darting to and fro.
Roger and I make eye contact, and I put my finger up to my lips. I press my body to the ground, getting below some nearby vines. The unicorn sniffs a few more times but seems satisfied that no one is there. He moves over to the candy cane and wraps his claws around the top of it. He begins chanting something and closes his eye.
I sit there transfixed, watching this beast that isn’t supposed to exist, standing only twenty feet from me. As he chants, the bloodred light gets brighter and brighter. His chant continues for a few minutes until he abruptly stops. Everything has gone silent. But then, in the far-off distance, I can hear the sound of snapping branches. The noise is getting closer.
Another unicorn breaks through the trees and into the clearing. He is shorter than the first one. He bows.
“Raindrop, is this place clear?” the newly arrived unicorn whispers. His voice is strained and cracked like a screeching violin.
“It’s clear,” Raindrop says. “I wouldn’t have given the signal if it wasn’t.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No. There was a raggedy mutt, but I took care of it,” Raindrop answers.
“Sundancer did well to charge you with such a dangerous assignment. So what is your conclusion? Do you recommend we move forward?”
Raindrop cleans some dirt from his claws and grimaces.
“They don’t expect anything. The Deaths and guardian angels are all leaving for their annual retreat in less than two days. My contact’s information is accurate, and the defenses will be minimal at best. Tell Sundancer it’s time to strike.”
A wicked smile cracks the new unicorn’s face, and he nods in approval
“Have you been able to find out where they’re keeping it?” he asks.
“It’s underground in the municipal building. They call it the Lock. If we send in the Shetlands first, it should be an easy—”
A cresc
endoing squeak pierces the air, like someone is slowly letting air from a balloon. Roger has farted again.
“Are you kidding me?” I whisper and jump to my feet. I scoop up Roger and run.
I don’t look back, but I can hear the unicorn’s massive body shattering through the trees behind me. I reach the gash in the wall and dive through the opening. I twist my body in the air to protect Roger, and my shoulder smashes into the vines and earth on the other side of the wall. Before I can get to my feet, I hear a thunderous crash, and the wall shudders behind me.
I’m back on my feet and making my way through the pitch black. I can hear the unicorn struggling to get through the opening. My left toe catches a tree limb, and I sprawl forward. Roger flies from my arms and tumbles across the ground. I feel my way to him, pick him back up, and hobble forward, my left knee throbbing in pain.
Ahead of me is a distant pinprick of light coming from the streetlamp at the mouth of the park. I focus on that point and move toward it as fast as I can. The unicorn lands on my side of the wall. The force causes the earth to tremble. The light is growing and I can make out enough of the shadows to dodge the larger branches and trunks, but the unicorn is gaining on me.
“Help! Help!”
The unicorn is right on top of me, the sound of his grunts and snorts pounding in my ears. I feel a claw scrape against my shoulder just as I break through the last of the trees.
I sprint into the street and the welcoming light. I glance behind me, but the unicorn isn’t there. I don’t stop until I have crossed the wide street and am on the opposite sidewalk. My lungs and legs feel like they’re on fire. I can taste blood in my mouth. I stare back at the park’s tree line, but all seems peaceful and quiet. I jog forward to distance myself from the park when I look down and notice Roger.
Death's Academy Page 8
